Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Dusty Coal Trains of BC (Our Beautiful British Columbia)

Daily routines keeps people busy and leave little time for involving in neighborhood issues. Some people think there involvement or opinion have literally no effect on decisions of local, provincial or federal governments decisions.

Video taken on June 07, 2013 along highway 99 northbound from Surrey, Delta to Richmond, Vancouver
(In the video I was talking to my brother-in-law about the train in Punjabi language and was amazed at the amount of coal dust)

Anyway everyone have their own opinions and there are always reasons behind it. But I am glad that our Board of Metro Vancouver have done a great job by voting against new coal terminal. According to them this project does not provide enough benefit to offset the environment risk involved. In my opinion even if the project generates ten times more jobs, still it is risky.

Last week I saw a cargo train full of coal which was dashing out from Surrey along highway 10 and crossed the highway 99 towards Delta North. It was unbelievable what I saw. For a moment I forget that I was in BC-The Beautiful British Columbia. I thought I am in my dreams. It can not happen in real world.

I saw all the train cars were full of coal dust blowing up in the sky. The amount of dust was so vast that it was hard to see through it. Unimaginable! Unbelievable!

For a moment I was thinking how did this train full of coal blowing coal dust all around managed to be on tracks. When a truck full of sand or soil or saw-dust goes on road, it is supposed to cover it with tarpaulin, otherwise it is violation of traffic rules. It poses danger to environment and drivers.

But this train is breaking all laws of environment and no body is stopping it. A simple dust can cause so many health problems and we are talking about coal dust which was blowing out along on both sides of the tracks. I saw it first time. I am not a regular commuter on highway 91 and 99. So I don't know how many dusty trains run on daily or weekly basis. It is hard to believe that people have to breath that dirty dusty air who live or work along the track vicinity.

It seems like the traffic and environment rules are for ordinary Canadians, where they have to pay air care fees and big repair bills to keep their vehicles environmentally friendly. Where they have to pay Carbon Tax. But what about these Dirty Dusty Trains. And it was not that it was an accident that only one or two train cars were blowing out dust. It was literally all the train cars blowing out the coal dust in the air. It was a big cloud of black coal dust around the trains moving at the speed of around 80-100 km/hour.

What a shame! We talk so big about environment and things like this are happening right under our nose. A Beautiful British Columbia with Dirty Dusty Coal Tracks.

I feel sorry for people who live and breath in the vicinity of those tracks. 


No comments: